Skip to main content

Move Over James Frey, Here Comes… Upton Sinclair?


PUBLISHED: January 29, 2006


CBC Arts is reporting that a newly discovered letter reveals that Upton Sinclair—the famed muckracker and author of the novel Boston, impassioned fictionalization of the conviction and execution of Sacco and Vanzetti—had direct knowledge that the two men were, in fact, guilty of the murders of a security guard and a factory boss, committed while robbing the factory’s payroll. Sinclair describes meeting their lawyer: “He … told me that the men were guilty, and he told me in every detail how he had framed a set of alibis for them.” It’s time for someone to reread The Jungle. Maybe turn-of-the-century meatpacking wasn’t so bad either…

Recommended Reading